The End of a Perfect Day
by CarnavalNoir
Summary: We're all clinging to our happy ending, aren't we. We all want them to find Adam delirious and wounded, but alive. [Complete]
1. One

He'd always thought nothing was scarier than _people_. People speaking in loud voices, people laughing for no reason, people walking too fast, too slow, smiling, happy, noisy, the stench of their bodies alive pressed together in crowds. People looking at him. Seeing him. Thinking secret things deep inside the grey mush of their brains.

Nothing was scarier than the unknown. And nothing was more unknowable than that heap of lives – breath and sweat – consciences – the others.

He's changed his mind now. He'd give everything, anything, for another human presence. A voice. Another fear matching his own.

The doctor.

He said he'd come back. But he won't. The old man has found him and killed him. Adam knows it and his eyes are filled with tears – that's right, he's facing an endless, painful agony, infection and dehydration in a dark room with the slowly rotting body of a man he has killed, but he's still able to cry – in the midst of panic and terror – he's still able to cry over somebody else.

And be ashamed of it, too.

Lawrence was so pale when he left. So pale. Adam cringes at the pain in his shoulder, but he doesn't care anymore. His own pain is nothing.

He was so pale when he left.

The little girl in the pictures… no-one will mourn him – his own pain is nothing – but Lawrence, Lawrence. They will all cry so much. Ache so much.

He was so pale when he left. So pale when Adam clung to him, fingers red and slippery, and said it all – _don't leave me, _when he begged him, _I need you, I need you_…

It wasn't only panic.

It really seemed as though he couldn't go on living without the doctor's deep, calm voice, without the doctor's cool-blooded thinking, without the doctor's reassuring, reasonnable sentences, even without his arrogant impatience – _I'm dealing with a juvenile_.

The doctor's sad eyes.

He's dead now, lying dead somewhere outside the room, but still inside the building. Lying in the dark as well – _don't keep me in the dark_

Don't… his voice.

_Don't keep me in the dark about what you're thinking._

Adam chokes on a sob. Thinks he sounds like a child. It's not the first time, either. _We gonna be okay? _What kind of self-respecting adult wails that sort of question to another grown-up?

_When have you ever been a self-respecting adult?_

How can his "I loathe myself" voice still be nagging him, even now? Now that he's about to die?

Adam moves. Searing pain, all through his arm now. Oh, but the pain is nothing. It's time that frightens him the most. He's stopped screaming hours ago. The clock is ticking. Slowly.

Dr. Lawrence Gordon. Adam still has a little bit of him. Still has a piece of his body, here with him. They'll decay together, all together. Once he's dead, Adam won't be alone anymore. Just has to wait for his time to come.

He hopes he won't start cursing Lawrence before the end arrives. Curse him for wounding him instead of aiming for his heart. _What were you thinking? You really thought you'd come back?_

He lets out an empty laugh. The sound startles him. And something red – a red spot in the dark – catches his eye.

The video camera.

The camera's still rolling.


	2. Two

He's lying on his back now. Next to the other one. Slowly, he turns his head. It's like sharing his bed with somebody. So close. But there should be heat. There's no heat coming from Zep.

It's been long enough. Days? Adam is used to the smell of decay. Doesn't notice it anymore.

If he squints, he can guess the form of Zep's smashed skull, his face a shapeless hole, remains of jaw and nose, some teeth scattered around. He's broken everything.

Through exhaustion, Adam remembers the rage coursing through him, worse than the pain – what pain? He'd forgotten it then, nothing mattered, just this face, this face, this man who'd tried to hurt Lawrence, tried to hurt them both. This man who'd almost _killed_ Lawrence. His face. Gone. Strike and strike, harder, smash it, erase it. The blinding anger.

And Lawrence stopping him.

Even then. Lawrence had crawled, even then, half dead already, sick with pain, blood running endlessly from his body, Lawrence had taken the time, taken the energy to crawl towards him and stop him and reassure him –_ you're gonna be alright _– soothe him – trembling fingers on his temple, blue eyes – _I just wounded you_ – and he was back, back, sweet, calm, logical, the doctor – _if I don't get help, I'm going to bleed to death_ – cause and consequence. The doctor.

And Adam sobbing.

He's lying on his back now, clinging to faint memories of Lawrence's voice. He can't move anymore. His arm is turning to stone. His veins are solid, paralysed, all around his wound and down to his elbow. Solid acid-like blood eating away at his muscles. He tries not to think about what it must look like. But he does. It must be filled with pus. Green. Black? All sorts of colors. He realized a few hours ago that if he dies in the dark (he _is_ dying in the dark) he won't ever see colors again.

Just grey, blurry shadows like an old TV. All in grey. Like his pictures.

Even the disgusting colors of his infected wound, even those of Zep's rotting flesh – he misses them. He wonders how he could spend twenty-seven years getting up every morning without crying with the joy of being able to_ see colors_.

The little, ironic red eye of the camera went away long ago. A noise, silence, more noises. The silhouette of a man behind the glass. And the camera was gone.

Adam feels all dry now. The skin of his lips breaks when he breathes. His stomach has stopped making funny noises. Now it just feels like an aching void under his lungs. He had no idea hunger could cause such physical pain.

Lawrence is slipping away.

Adam catches himself wondering if death really exists. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe your body stops living, but your mind doesn't, your mind stays inside it, active and alive, and maybe you're still there as you rot, feeling every minute of it, still conscious as you turn to –

And he fights the thought away.

Remember every word Lawrence has said. From the beginning to the end. That's a game. A little game Adam plays. Remember Lawrence's words. How he's explained he wouldn't have another kid because it was hard enough to concentrate on one. How he screamed at times. How he tried to shoot Zep with his empty gun – _I'll fucking kill you, you fucking bastard, I'll fucking kill you_ – how he broke.

_Fuck this shit._

He'd like death to come upon him like sleep, in the middle of a fantasy – take him away while Lawrence is on his mind. That would be a good way to end it.

His eyelids feel heavy.

He remembers how he pretended to die. With that stupid 'poisonous cigarette'. Lawrence whispering to him. _I need you to play along with me on this…_

He can't move his fingers now.

He remembers Lawrence's first words. The first words he heard from him. Before he even saw him. All wet, coughing, choking, water in his throat, the chains, calling, panic, and the voice in the dark.

The distant voice of the doctor, stating a simple fact.

_You're not dead._


	3. Three

Some time later, he realizes he's slipping away. The dark and the stillness, the exhaustion – his thoughts have escaped, he cannot control them now. He cannot play the Lawrence game anymore, cannot summon the memories at will. They come and go. He watches. Powerless now even in his own mind.

He remembers sitting in a sunny living room. Remembers eating dirty snow and scratching at a mosquito bite until it went bloody. Remembers the first time he felt guilt.

Somehow his memories grow darker as they get more recent. Rare experiences of happiness always occured in his beloved darkroom. The first thing he did when he moved to his own apartment. Installing it. His little black nest.

He loved it. Loved hiding in dark corners – the dark was the best place to hide. Alone in the dark. He loved it.

Obscurity has grown on his life, eating it – this is a logical conclusion. It all makes such perfect sense that, for a moment, he almost feels peaceful.

He's no longer fighting. He's letting it happen, vaguely aware of the fact that the little memory dance and the sudden clarity are supposedly signs of imminent death – at last. He remembers screaming that he wanted to live, something he'd never thought he would hear himself say, he remembers begging – _I'm begging you_ – begging to stay alive?

How strange.

He remembers his sister, taller and darker than him. Summers and school. A habit of permanent fear growing with adolescence. He remembers trying to fall in love. Trying. But he's never been any good at living. Watching was his thing – watching and remembering.

He used to be good at spotting beauty, too. And capturing it was easy – his camera could capture anything, make anything obvious, make a detail striking, with the right focus – but people were more interested in ugliness, and it's ugliness that has paid off. Nobody ever cared about beauty. No-one has ever paid him for beauty.

At times, real life, his situation – everything comes back. Full conscience – fear and sickness, despair – and Adam quickly dives back into half-sleep, dreams and memories, wondering why it's taking so long. He's able to think now. He's able to wait for death.

Hours go by.

And reality's little visits become rare. He doesn't know that he's shaking. He's not aware of the infection, not aware of the fever making him sweat and burn and accelerating the dehydration process.

He's almost there.

And then a noise roars through his brain and neon lights burn his eyes.

His body tenses in a painful reflex. His throat feels raw when he breathes, his chest aches like he's taking air in for the first time, and he wonders how long it's been, wonders if he was dead, just then, for a moment. He cannot open his eyes. There's nothing but a blinding white blur.

He's awake now. Panic is the first feeling that comes back. And the cold. He's so cold.

The light is on.

There is someone in the room. He cannot see who it is, he cannot move. Cannot turn to see if the door is open. It's too painful, too difficult. It's been too long – he needs more time.

Is it Lawrence? Has Lawrence come back?

Gathering his strength, Adam tries to call – his mouth is dry, his tongue – he chokes out a strangled noise, tries again, a few shaky half-sobs, a cough – "Lawrence?"

He must move. He must see. His mind screams hope and danger all at the same time, he must see who turned the neons back on. Why isn't there any sound?

His shoulder is heavy like a stone, his arm a dead weight on his side. Eyes still tight shut against the blinding light, he presses his left arm down on the floor and tries to sit up – his body doesn't understand why he wants to make it move now, after days of sleepy agony, of silence and peace – it hurts. But he goes on. Tries. Tries again. Why isn't Lawrence saying anything?

Finally, pushing on his arm with desperate sobs of exhaustion and pain, he succeeds.

He's sitting. He hasn't tried to move his legs. One thing at a time.

Nothing has broken the silence. Except his own breathing, and his attempts to speak – any words, anything. His lucidity is trying to fight its way back. He needs language, articulate thoughts, to return to the world of the living.

Now he must open his eyes. Slowly, slowly – it takes effort and pain.

Zep is the first thing he sees, faceless and decaying, and before Adam's mind can register disgust, something inside him contracts with nausea. The colors are back. Grimacing in pain, he twists his neck in absurd curiosity to see his own wound, see what it looks like now.

His eyes fill with tears at the sight. All the colors are back. The fabric of his t-shirt is sticking to the skin. Dried blood? Or has it started to rot as well, caught in the infection?

"Congratulations."

A voice behind him. Adam turns – too quickly, and the pain, the searing pain at every move he makes, distorts his face once more. He lets out a small cry. A man is standing at the door – the door is wide open, _the door is open _– a man, nothing but a silhouette in Adam's unfocused, blurry sight.

But he knows the voice.

"You're still alive."


	4. Four

Half-blind, teeth chattering, Adam tries to huddle up against the cold and the fear. But the cold comes from within, it trickles in icy sweat down his body, and the fear won't ever go away now.

The man is wearing a long, black coat, and Adam remembers there had been bloodstains on his face – they're gone now. He is white, immaculate, no eyebrows, almost no face. Just small eyes, two dark stains Adam can barely distinguish – but he doesn't need sight. He doesn't even have to concentrate – the memory of the cruel, sadistic fury in the old man's gaze springs back to his mind without an effort.

He lets out a small noise like a frightened animal, and somewhere in his brain a remnant of shame comes alive. Shame will be his last feeling. With him until the very end.

The man is standing perfectly still. Adam can almost see him now – really see him – his eyes are getting used to the neon lights, used to being open again. Maybe the man is waiting for him to gather what little consciousness he has left. Maybe he's staring at him with a smile. Maybe the rage is gone from his eyes now, maybe there's only contempt.

Contempt and disgust.

The thought awakes anger in Adam's heart, and suddenly the cold turns into burning heat. The fever comes in waves from his wound and cradles him in delirium – he can see the details now. The man isn't smiling. And his eyes are empty.

"I am glad to find you in such a state, Adam. This is precisely what I was hoping for."

Adam feels his fists trying to clench, but he cannot move his right hand. He's still shaking, and somehow, through terror and fury, he knows how vulnerable he looks. So he forces stillness upon himself, stupidly wasting strength – and the pain makes him faint and nauseous. He fights it, stubborn.

Another memory, uncontrollable – old humiliation – his inability to stop crying – the old, rusty, dirty nail had been pushed almost all the way into the tender skin of his forearm – the doctor all in white, smiling indulgently and the enormous metallic claw-like _thing _to remove it – and his mother's voice – _come on, Adam, be brave – you don't want the nice doctor to see you cry, do you?_

Adam closes his eyes for a second. The fever burns him and he is freezing cold again. But he won't let the man see him shake like a sick child.

He doesn't dare to ask if Lawrence is still alive.

"Does your injury hurt you when you move, Adam? Is the pain constant, or do you only feel it when you put your body under too much strain?"

"What the fuck do you want, you asshole? You wanna finish me?" Somehow, through the surge of hatred, Adam doesn't feel the effort of speaking. He wishes he could make his voice sound more confident. He wishes he had the guts to look up. To meet the old man's gaze.

"Don't be needlessly rude to me."

He hears the exasperation behind the calculated coldness. The man slowly walks towards him, and Adam tries to move away – the pain stabs through him, almost familiar now, and he lets out a small cry.

"Easy..."

The old man crouches down, close to him, too close, and mocks him with soft, soothing noises – "Easy. I won't hurt you." – like he's some small game caught in a trap, like the old man is God coming down from Heaven, pure and magnificent in his halo of neon lights, like the old man is the doctor telling him it won't hurt and Adam _knows _he's lying, because the nail is so big and it's going to bleed – but Lawrence said he wouldn't lie to him.

And once more, the room and the memories swirl. Adam closes his eyes again.

"I'm going to let you go, Adam."

His voice is a tender whisper now, but it's all fake – the rage and bitterness are still there, easily perceived.

And then there's a rustling at his ankle, and Adam can't see what the man his doing, but all of a sudden the weight of the chain is gone, and there's the heavy noise of metal against the tiles, and the man has pushed the chain away.

Adam is free.

He looks up, eyes wide and filled with tears – can it be gratitude? But it cannot end this way.

The old man stands up and looks down at him with a sweet smile.

"There, Adam. You're no longer in chains, and the door is wide open. Find your way out. I will leave the main door open for you. If you manage to reach it, you should find a phone booth only one block away. But you should know that this building is an entry to an underground sewer system. There are several miles of galleries in which you may get lost. My advice is, follow the blood trail your companion left behind him."

At the mention of Lawrence, Adam forgets the disbelief, the shock, the pain and the exhaustion – has he left a trail leading to the way out? Does it mean he survived?

But the old man won't answer him. Instead, he turns away to abandon him. And at last – _if you manage to reach it – several miles of galleries –_ Adam understands.

"Wait!" he screams, heart pounding with fear and effort – "I'll never get out of here, you fucker!" – he is sobbing now, and doesn't try to control it. "Why do you do this, you bastard? Why are you doing this to me? What did I fucking _do_?"

The man turns again, all expression gone from his face. "I want you to experience it, Adam. I want you to know what it feels like to fight against your own body for survival, to feel your own flesh turning against you and becoming your worst enemy. I want you to know that it is no laughing matter. I want you to know that it isn't _sweet_."

Sweet – the word echoes in Adam's blank mind, and brings back the memory of his own voice, stopping his hysterical sobs – _give me that sweet cancer._

That sweet cancer.

_Your own flesh turning against you – _and Adam sees the man's sallow skin and his absence of hair and eyebrows – _fight against your own body_ – and he remembers the coughing on Lawrence's tape – _the only thing left to do..._

_Give me that sweet cancer._

And he sees the cruel bitterness in the man's eyes. In the sick, old, dying man's eyes.

He opens his mouth to retort. But what can he say? The game is lost. Adam looks down at his ankle, red from the electric shocks, but free from the chain. He tries to move – and the pain blinds him once more, the weight of his dead arm swallows his strength, the fever makes the white room fall and rise and fall around him.

The chain doesn't matter anymore.

He cannot crawl away. Weak, wounded, delirious, starved – he cannot move. He cannot even reach the door.

But he cannot die like this. He cannot die with the lights on, with the chain hanging useless from the pipe, with the door wide open before him, with freedom and survival there, so close.

And as Adam's mind goes to pieces, as tears dry solid on his dirty face, without a sound, the killer walks away.


	5. Five

He wastes an absurd amount of time staring at his once-chained ankle. His mind is empty for a while. He wonders if it has blocked itself in order not to break. But there is no answer, of course.

And then he turns.

There is a trail of blood on the floor. It starts from the severed foot that's slowly rotting in a corner, abandonned and naked. A piece of dead flesh that once belonged to Lawrence's body. Lawrence had to get rid of it, Adam recalls. Images of the hacksaw cutting into flesh, memories of blood gushing from the wound, of bone exposed, torn bits of skin, the movements of the hacksaw – back and forth – tearing, ripping. Lawrence is gone. Somewhere. And all that is left now is that useless piece of him.

Lawrence is gone, but now the door is open and Adam can follow.

He could follow.

He could move, despite the pain. Fight his way out.

Adam wastes more time staring at Lawrence's foot, still chained. At the floor, covered in blood – some of it poisoned.

And at the door.

The huge, square door leading to nothing. The outside is dark, opaque, like a black screen. But in the room, there is light. Reassuring light. He can see everything. Every corner. No place for danger to hide. He could just curl up under the safe neons, and go to sleep.

He's so tired.

Adam knows he cannot survive, anyway. He knows he will lose himself in the dark, and die knowing he has lost the one chance the killer has given him. Die hating himself. But if he decides to stay in the room, there will be no place for hatred or regrets. No energy for that. Just lie down, and sleep. Just sleep. So easy. It will all be easy. He's waited for this, so long…

What is there outside that he truly needs, anyway? What could he possibly need more than rest, more than peace…?

Lawrence. Perhaps Lawrence has survived. Perhaps he's found his way out, and he was saved. And he's alive, somewhere, not lost, not dead, not alone, somewhere in the light, surrounded with –

But…

But if Lawrence has survived, why hasn't he come back? What about his promise?

_I wouldn't lie to you._

Doctors always lie.

Adam doesn't realize he's started shaking again. It doesn't matter now that he is alone.

_I'll bring someone back. I promise._

It would be better if Lawrence was dead.

He doesn't want to think of getting out and meeting him again, knowing he's been fooled, abandonned, betrayed – having to hate Lawrence – no, no, _no – _he doesn't want to see him again if it's not to hold him and tell him that it's over, that they're alive, that they made it.

He remembers imagining it. Some time earlier. He remembers imagining it when Lawrence was still in the room with him.

He remembers the scene he'd made up back then, Lawrence and him, together, crawling towards daylight, helping each other, urging each other on, reaching the door, falling out of the dark and into the forgotten heat of the sun, face raised, eyes closed, welcoming the light, clinging to each other in joy, lying down on the ground under the vast, open sky. Laughing weakly.

It is all gone now. Even if he gets out. All is lost. All hope.

He could just lie down here. Lie down right here. Fall asleep. He turns again, ready to curl up on the floor, looking for the right position to die in.

And he sees Zep.

Zep's body has been decaying for days. Now there is movement in the hole that was his face. Adam crawls closer and sees maggots feeding off human flesh for the first time.

_Are you going to watch yourself die today, Adam?_

He sees his own body dead next to Zep's, rotting. He sees the maggots digging into his own face.

_You might be in the room that you die in._

Something like instinct screams inside his mind. It screams against insanity. An animal wouldn't lie down and die. An animal would be wiser. Like Lawrence, gnawing its leg out of the trap. Like Lawrence.

He decides to try and get out.

Breathing hard, almost crying out at every move he makes, he crawls towards the bathtub. A hysterical mix of terror and nausea has gotten hold of him and he is fighting not to throw up, knowing it would drain him of his last remnants of strength. He grabs the edge of the bathtub and tries to stand up, using only the left side of his body. The right side, down to his waist, is paralysed with infection.

At first it seems useless. He tries to pull himself up, tries with all his might, muscles tensed until they ache, until his blood burns. And he rests for a second, in order not to faint. With every effort, he cries louder. At one point it becomes screams. Screaming makes him stronger, he discovers. So he screams with despair, with fury, with rage.

It takes him almost half an hour to stand up.

He hasn't been in that position for endless days.

He staggers up to the closest wall and leans against it, sobbing with exhaustion, Alexa's voice suddenly springing from the depth of his memory – _why don't you do something with your life?_

_You can't be pissed off all the time._

_I love you._

Why is he thinking of her? Why now? Adam closes his eyes, breathes in deeply and remembers.

He remembers how she let him understand, subtly, that it took effort not to leave him. That he was only a good deed to her, a poor little creature she had decided to help, like the cats and dogs and monkeys from the laboratories that she used to set free with her straight edge friends. They had so much fun together, in their little make-believe commando missions, and he kept saying it was ridiculous, and he wouldn't even quit smoking for her. What a jerk, her feminist friends would say to her behind his back, why do you stay with that _jerk_?

The thought of her makes his anger more powerful. He can feed on it. He must. His anger gives him strength. He must use it for his own survival.

He remembers her caresses, the way she looked at him, worried, condescending. _But, Adam – you can't be pissed off all the time. _He remembers her feminist treaty about the political meaning of sexual penetration. He remembers what it was like to make love to her, not knowing if this was how she truly felt about it – _man is incapable of empathy, only domination, and his penis is his weapon –_ bullshit. Grotesque, pompous bullshit. But still.

He remembers guilt.

He remembers seeing her with her friends, laughing, delicate, beautiful. He remembers feeling like an error in her life, a stain – and he remembers the complete absence of pain when she'd finally left him.

Just another natural conclusion.

Now he is walking, still using the wall for balance, crushing his dead shoulder against it, grabbing at anything on the smooth surface to support himself – his legs are shaking, his knees so weak, his face contorted and drowned in tears of effort. He must forget all about the present, lose himself in his memories – as long as he can concentrate on what makes him angry, he won't feel the physical struggle. Rage will carry him through.

So he lets it all out. After years of keeping the memories locked, harmless, he lets them out again. Disappointment with reality. Humiliation. Fear. Pain.

Anger.

He remembers his father, always silent, always gone – he remembers his mother trying to hide her own frustrations – he remembers them both, taking it out on him and his sister – he remembers his vague awareness that it was all ordinary middle-class issues, that there was no complaining about something every single family in America was going through.

His hands slip on the remnants of the broken two-way mirror. He doesn't turn to see his face. He's too afraid, too afraid, if he gets out, to see this image of him for the rest of his life, drawn over that of his reflection – dark circles around the eyes, skin encrusted with tears and blood, lips blue, face hollow as a skull – and he's almost there, almost at the door – the corner – he's careful not to step on Lawrence's severed foot – he hardly sees it, it's a mere obstacle, he doesn't know what it is, doesn't know where he is – he's deep inside himself again, face to face with his own rage. Fighting, for the first time, to stay alive.

He remembers the ordinary humiliations of school. He remembers his fear of other people's eyes on him, remembers making jokes to hide his own terror and hatred, he remembers the girls he couldn't have, the boys he couldn't want, he remembers jerking off, remembers coming with a moan just as his mother walked into his room, and fourteen years later the shame of it still burns him –

He's at the door.

Is it the fever or the pain of the memories making his hands shake? Has he gone too far?

He clings to the doorframe, trying not to fall. The trail of Lawrence's blood disappears in a dark passage. There are pipes on the wall – pipes that can help him stand up. He breathes in, and realizes he's still sobbing. It doesn't matter.

The killer was right –

_Are you going to watch yourself die –_

He's not going to watch himself suffer today. He's not going to watch himself die. He's cut the paradox in two. He's given up on apathy. He's going with anger, just anger.

With a sob that sounds almost like a scream, Adam forces his body on, and steps forward into the dark.


	6. Six

It lasts and lasts, the endless corridors with their damp, dark walls and the stench of humidity and blood – Lawrence's blood, almost black on the dirty floor, irregular traces of a crawling man – the trail gets thicker, deeper in some places.

Lawrence was slowing down. Adam can almost see him on the floor, can almost remember instants he hasn't lived, feel Lawrence's efforts, Lawrence's pain – they're his – and his eyes never leave the trail of blood as he clings to the pipes on the wall, the fingers of his right hand half paralysed. He's got legs like those of a broken puppet, bending and twisting under his weight, and he coughs and sobs and can barely breathe. Every step is a victory and a bit of life gone.

He catches himself trying to pray.

The images from his long-gone past have disappeared now. He no longer needs them to go on. He knows he's moving towards a future that will have nothing to do with his old life, he knows everything will be different now – there are so many things he will start believing in, and so many truths he won't laugh at or deny, and it will all be right, and it will all be perfect and beautiful.

He just has to reach the light.

Another step. He had thought the bullet hadn't hit his lung, but he's not sure now – there's the taste of his own blood in his breath, and the pain, faint at first, now surges through his chest every time he takes air in. It's the infection, he thinks – the infection has spread too far. What if it reaches his heart? Is there a risk? How much time does he have left?

Lawrence would know.

He remembers Lawrence's mocking voice – _you'd be dead by now, trust me. _Trust me, you would be dead – trust me, you don't know a thing. Ah, little one, your ignorance is so endearing.

Did Lawrence's knowledge save him?

The trail of blood becomes thicker and thicker. Lawrence must have stopped many times, more and more often. Adam walks on, tries to go faster, watching Lawrence's fate unravelling under the form of those last traces he left – fearing to find his dead body. He has to squint to distinguish the blood from the dirty ground, to keep track of his fragile Ariane's thread, his way out – but his eyes grow acquainted to obscurity, and when the trail becomes a pool, when it turns from an irregular line to a wide, circular stain, he notices it and his heart beats faster.

After that point, the trail goes on. Regular, smooth, clean. Lawrence has been dragged.

Alive or dead?

Adam doesn't want to think of how stupid and naive the question is – he doesn't want to admit the certainty of Lawrence's death. He only wants to go on. It doesn't matter what he will find.

And so he walks, on and on, until he finds a ladder.

The blood leads to it, there is no mistake. And it goes up. Now Adam knows Lawrence is dead – he could never have climbed that ladder with one foot and three quarters of his blood gone.

And Adam's not even sure that he'll be able to do it, himself.

No matter. He won't let that stop him. No need to think – somehow he already knows what to do; has instinct taken the lead or something? Will he survive thanks to his animal side and write a new age book about it? Alexa would love it.

Fuck that bitch.

He drags himself towards the ladder and climbs it, one movement at a time, no longer trying to control his cries of pain and effort. His skin is coated in sweat and dirt and blood and all of a sudden he thinks of hot water, of being naked, rid of his disgusting clothes, he thinks of being clean again, he remembers the shower temperature in his old apartment, sometimes icy, sometimes burning, changing all of a sudden, how he cursed it every day – he wouldn't care now. He wouldn't care about all those things.

He's getting good at using only one side of his broken body. Left arm, left leg, pulling, pulling himself up and up towards daylight. He's so exhausted. His heart is beating madly, no rhythm, just a deafening noise and blood buzzing in his ears. With each concentration and spending of his strength, a sweet, sad certainty dawns further on him. He won't live through it.

He won't get another chance.

How strange to feel such a knowledge, to face such a truth...

But he must go on. He must get out. He will die, yes – death is already here – but he won't die in this building, he won't die in these rotten sewers.

He must get out.

When he gets to the top of the ladder, he wants to look around him – but the shock of the effort and of its abrupt end, the shock of finding himself on all fours, resting on solid ground all of a sudden, shakes his body too deeply. The muscles of his stomach are caught in spasm and he vomits something acid and burning, something that looks thick and black in the semi-obscurity.

It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. He cannot get up now – he will never get up again – but there's daylight at the end of the corridor. It is only one long corridor, one long straight corridor. The last one. And then, the way out.

Tears roll down his cheeks and leave clean trails – here it is, the light, so close, finally _there_.

How long does he have left? How much time? A few minutes?

He crawls towards the corpse that has been left in a foetal position, half-way to the door. He sees Lawrence's face, Lawrence's open eyes, with their pupils no longer black but diluted in the greyish-blue irises. Lawrence's eyes are decaying.

They're not looking at him.

Time is floating away. All his strength has gone in a second. Lawrence is there again. Lawrence is dead. His eyes are open, but there is no mind left behind them. He's just an empty body now. His voice is gone forever.

It doesn't hurt, though – not as much as Adam had thought. There is only a calm, serene, silent sadness. Adam no longer wants to reach the light. He wants to stay with Lawrence. He wants to remember Lawrence.

He wants to say he's sorry.

He lies down next to him. The floor is damp, and smells like old rain. Adam remembers Lawrence crying – the dark circles around his eyes – he had always known Lawrence would break, from the very beginning, and he had hidden the picture from him because he didn't want it to happen too soon. He had always been able to see it in the others. The fragility, the imminent surges of pain and madness. He could see it in others, but only fear it in himself, never knowing when it would come.

He remembers Lawrence's face twisting as he sawed off his foot, contorted from the effort most of all – he probably hadn't felt much pain. Probably hadn't been there at all as it happened.

He lets his fingers (left hand, of course) trace Lawrence's temple, run through his blond hair – it looks grey now.

_First dead body I've ever seen._

No, it's not the first – Zep was the first – but Zep had no face. So it doesn't count. Zep had no dead eyes. And Zep had never really been alive.

The faint light from the door reminds Adam of where he is, of what he must do. He smiles. He cannot leave Lawrence behind. Not now. Not after all they've been through. They will get out together, crawl together towards the light, towards the rest of the world. He will take Lawrence out of this place with him. He will make it come true.

He knows it will take away his last strengths. He realizes he has reached the state of peaceful lucidity that comes just before death – but there is no fear. Lawrence is with him now. Lawrence is already there. All there is to do is follow the traces he has left.

So Adam clings to Lawrence's body and drags him out, crawling and pulling the dead weight after him, unable to breathe, grimacing in pain – his chest is filled with blood, filled with fever. Everything swirls. But he is so close…

He has only one goal to focus on – he mustn't die before they are outside. Before both of them are free.

Adam tries to move faster. He's getting closer to the light, yet it seems the world is growing darker, and something in his numb mind screams that it is death, that he must get out, get out now if he wants to win this game, and see the sky again before he goes – and here it is, the door, the door is wide open, the killer didn't lie, and Adam crawls and crawls and lets himself roll down the steps to the ground, arms still tight around Lawrence.

The sun is blinding. The sky is entirely, beautifully empty – no clouds, just perfect blue, and sweet air, and wind, and heat.

At last.

They have fallen down together, and Lawrence is in his arms, safe and sound, as he had been in Adam's dreams of escape, and he knows they have won.

"We made it," he whispers. "We got out, you see? We're out. We fucking made it."

He closes his eyes, and the sun makes the inside of his eyelids red, makes everything red. He notices, vaguely, that the panic he had expected – the terror before the very last step – isn't there.

"Lawrence." Adam lets out the name, feels it roll in his mouth and leave his body with his last breath. He doesn't realize that his heart has already stopped beating.

And the world vanishes as he dies.

The wind falls. Nothing moves. Time goes on, seconds ticking in silence and stillness. And all there is left is two corpses entwined.

A group of students drives by almost an hour later. They park their car and get closer after some hesitation. The girls panic and cry, one of them screams. The boys do their best to comfort them, half-proud to be so brave. The driver runs to get her cell phone. An ambulance arrives after a few minutes, along with the police. Lawrence and Adam are separated and carried away. No need for sirens. It is too late.

Several police officers enter the building. The sun slowly sets as they come back out, faces pale and serious, and call for backup. The night falls; more cars arrive with their dancing lights.

And then there's nothing left to see.


End file.
